Anita Angelova speaks with Jaroslav Jurečka, dramaturg of the National Theatre in Brno and part of the team of the international festival Theatre World Brno, about his impressions of performances in the festival programme.

Mr. Jurečka, you are a guest at the Bulgarian showcase within the Varna Summer Theatre Festival. Could you tell us more about your work in the Czech Republic?

I work as a dramaturg at the National Theatre Brno, and I’m also a theatre producer and part of the team behind the Theatre World Brno festival, which is mainly produced by the National Theatre Brno. The festival is a multi-genre event, and what makes it special is that it’s produced by six theatres in the city, along with the Theatre Academy. Over eight days, we use 11 venues, and each theatre sends a dramaturg or artistic director to join the board that selects performances, both from the Czech Republic and abroad. The main theme of the festival is cooperation. While we are usually competitors, during the festival and its preparation, we work together.

For two evenings already, you have been following the programme of the Varna Summer Theatre Festival. Would you like to share your impressions of the performances you have watched so far?

I have watched three performances so far. The first two were Mother Courage and Her Children and As You Like It, both based on classical theatre texts.

When I saw Mother Courage and Her Children, I really liked the lead actress – Albena Pavlova. She was brilliant. I appreciated her approach, which leaned into a kind of comedic, babbling style – not something you usually see with Mother Courage. I haven’t seen it done like that before, but I really liked it. As for the performance overall, I found myself reflecting on Brecht. He’s a tough figure who is not easy to put on stage. There are even doubts about the authorship of his plays – many believe they were written by his female friends and lovers – but he was a good director, and his vision is embedded in the final text. His directing vision is not easy to overcome. I’ve staged Brecht once myself, so I’ve dealt with that challenge. I was thinking during the performance of Mother Courage that it’s difficult to transform a nearly 100-year-old play into something that feels current, even though its meaning is still very relevant. There were wars when it was written in 1939, and now there’s war in Europe again. But the form—the performance itself—was a bit too Brechtian for me.

Regarding As You Like It, I was confused. I liked the actresses and actors very much, but I didn’t understand the director’s approach to the text. Why was it so long if it wasn’t funny? At first, I thought the director was trying to stage it exactly as it was in the early 17th century. But in the end, when Jacques’ monologue came after the wedding, I realized that he could have changed the text. So why didn’t he adjust it more to make it clearer for the audience? That left me confused. Again, I liked the actors, but I didn’t understand the set design, and I didn’t understand the dramaturgy of it.

The third play, The Ploughman and the Death, felt like a sweet piece of bonbonniere. The plot is anecdotal; you could sum it up in two sentences. But still, the production put so much into it—so many words, so much energy to create the projections and such thoughtful moments. During that performance, I found myself really thinking about the death of someone close to me. So, in that sense, I believe it was a successful piece. I really liked its aesthetic—it was funny almost all the time, thanks to the projections and technical elements. I really appreciated that approach. So yes, this play about death and dying was funny. And I think it must be so.